The impact of online learning community participation on college students’ psychological capital: the mediating role of academic identity and the moderating role of psychological resource transformation

Background In the era of rapid digital development, online learning communities have become crucial platforms for college students to acquire knowledge and social support. However, systematic evidence remains lacking regarding whether and how these communities can enhance psychological capital. Methods This study investigates the mechanism by which online learning community participation influences psychological capital among college students, introducing academic identity as a mediating variable and psychological resource transformation as a moderating variable. Through data analysis of 644 college students, methods including Pearson correlation analysis, regression analysis, Bootstrap sampling, and moderating effect testing were employed. Results The following conclusions were drawn: First, online learning community participation significantly positively affects psychological capital ( β = 0.54, p 0.001). Second, academic identity exerts a significant mediating effect between online learning community participation and psychological capital (the mediating effect accounts for 35.6% of the total effect, with 95% Bootstrap confidence intervals excluding zero). Third, psychological resource transformation strengthens the “participation → identity” pathway, with a significant interaction term ( β = 0.235, p 0.001), indicating that students with higher psychological resource transformation abilities benefit more from academic identity cultivation. Conclusion This study clarifies the chain mechanism and boundary conditions of “online learning community participation → academic identity → psychological capital,” providing empirical evidence for universities to optimize online learning community design and implement a dual-intervention approach combining “psychological resource transformation training and academic identity cultivation.”